Hospitals Are Desperate for Workers. They Might Find Them in High Schools.

Public school students in Boston will have a direct route to guaranteed jobs with the city’s largest employer, the Mass General Brigham health system, via a new initiative that will pair high schools eager to expand career training with hospitals desperate for workers.

A $38 million investment by Bloomberg Philanthropies — the largest gift in the history of the city’s public schools — will transform a small existing high school into an 800-student feeder for the sprawling Mass General system, which is currently plagued by some 2,000 job vacancies.

Boston is one of 10 cities or regions where Bloomberg has pledged to spend a total of $250 million over five years pairing hospitals with high schools. Students will earn college credits as they train for careers in nursing, emergency medicine, lab science, medical imaging and surgery.

But in a nod to evolving views on higher education, and to surging demand for vocational training, the program will prepare thousands of studentsto start full-time jobs upon graduation instead of college if they choose.